Sunday, December 01, 2013

Dirt Simple Alcohol Stove

I made one from a soda can a week or two ago and finally had the chance to try it out today.

For lunch I had a Mountain House “Wraps” meal of scrambled eggs, sausage, onions, and hash browns. The bag says it’s for filling your own burritos, but I ate it right out of the bad using an MRE spoon.

The stove worked well using denatured alcohol for the fuel. At first, I had it inside the hobo stove pictured, which I intended to be both a pot stand and windscreen for the stove. I put an ounce or two of alcohol in the soda can stove and after about five minutes, the 1.5 cups of water in the Walmart grease pot was just starting to boil. At that point it ran out of fuel. I waited for the stove to cool down, added more fuel, and lit it. After waiting about 30 seconds for it to begin burning well I put the pot right on top of the stove, as shown in the video. Within a few minutes the water was boiling.

The instructions for the Mountain House food are to add 1.5 cups of boiling water to the pouch, stir, then reseal and let it sit for 8 – 9 minutes. I did so, stirred it some more, then ate it. It was pretty good and not too salty. A little bit of hot sauce would’ve been good, though.

I’m impressed with the stove. Compared with other alcohol stoves made from soda cans it’s much simpler to make. I.e., you don’t need to make a series of holes around the outside. I do need to come up with some sort of lightweight windscreen. I’d like to come up with a kit consisting of the stove, fuel bottle, windscreen, and a box of matches, all fitting inside the Walmart grease pot. It would be a great lightweight cooking kit.